Dreams (PS4) First Impressions

My birthday just passed, and I decided to ask for a few PS4 games to finish my collection for the console exclusives. Amongst The Last of Us Part II and Ghost of Tsushima, I acquired Dreams, the creative bastion from the makers of the legendary LittleBigPlanet series. I knew I’d have a guaranteed good time exploring it, so how has it held up now that several months have passed and creations have been unleashed?

Well, it’s as good as I had hoped it to be and more. Dreams is a game to keep for the long haul; one that’s ridiculously easy to pick up and play, and one that could very well spark the creative side of me to get imaginative. Aside from a brief, beautiful 5-minute tutorial to introduce the simple mechanics and immerse the player into the jovial, colorful world, you’re able to get right into the created worlds in Dreams in no time. That is something I’ve been waiting to do for most of the year.

The first thing I did when I started searching for levels was temper my expectations. Because these player-created worlds were made by no more than a handful of people with the bare assets of the game, I wasn’t expecting to sink more than a few minutes into any given level. I kicked off my session checking out the concurrent most popular worlds, which were leaps and bounds better than I could have imagined, showcasing tons of man-hours put into the creations.

After I got a feel for how the worlds would be, I did what I always intended to do and searched for popular IPs to see what would come up. Starting with Sonic, I found some hilarious short levels that controlled surprisingly well. The most popular one was a work-in-progress that spanned several levels, had an overworld, and used sounds like the coin grab and the level completion jingle. It was surreal to see a loving recreation of the fan-favorite franchise in a game-within-a-game format.

I also checked out what came up after searching for Mario. Two ones that caught my eye immediately were love letters to Super Mario 64; one with an absolutely gorgeous environment in Peach’s castle and another which had a complete level with two stars to collect. The latter caught me off-guard with how expansive the worlds in Dreams could be, and, even though the experience was only a couple minutes long, I had a newfound excitement in the game and found I couldn’t put it down.

I’m really excited to see much more from Dreams now that I know the scale of which these creations can span. While my first go of it was confined to single-player popular IP’s, I’m stoked to see the completely original creations that have manifested in Media Molecule’s newest iteration. It’s bringing me back to the times I would explore LittleBigPlanet, except this is so much more fleshed-out and even prettier in a 3D format. Who knows what will be on Dreams a year from now? I’m sure to be checking then!